Well dear friends and gentle hearts, it would seem that the world is doing it’s best to pick fights with me and mine this week.

I’m sure many of you have heard about this little fiasco, but in addition to that, the Montreal Comic Con had an issue with us handing out flyers at their event. You see, they came to see me about a week after we had opened. At the time, we had virtually no stock, no publicity, and nothing to bring to a convention. So we politely declined. We did however, display their posters and distribute their flyers, and make promoting their Dec 6th event part of our Grand Opening celebration.

Come time for Montreal Comic Con, a few of our regular customers went to the show to distribute flyers letting the Montreal Comic Community know of The 4th Wall’s existence. They paid admission, and then were greeted by Convention staff who told them that they were not allowed to distribute the flyers. When asked why, since there was several other people flyering the event, they were told that since we had declined a booth, we were not allowed to have flyers at the show. I have since been told that this came from someone other than the event organizers, someone else on their staff.

At this point, I feel I must mention again that we at the 4th Wall happily displayed Montreal Comic Con’s posters and distributed their flyers, and made promoting their event part of our Grand Opening Celebration.

I understand that they don’t want people standing in front of the entrance to the show handing things out. If I’d been contacted, I would have told my people to move away from that area. I was not contacted, nor was I until I contacted them to find out their side of the story. My number is on the flyer. If someone representing me is breaking a rule in a public, I expect to be contacted. If it is your policy that no one hand out flyers in the event, then I should be contacted and told that. Not told that it’s because we didn’t take a booth.

I’ve since spoken with the organizer of the show, and he assures me that this was not a factor, but this was what one of his staff told us. I was also told that most conventions don’t allow people to hand out flyers within the show. I’ll let that one sit for a moment, and you can use the Watchtower flyers that I’m sure many, many of you have to write your responses to it.

I don’t know much, but I’m not looking for trouble. I just want to sell comics, share the stories I love with people, and maybe make enough money to live doing it. At every turn though, it seems that the industry itself is trying to stop me. Be it incidents with conventions, or the absolutely ridiculous distribution system of the books, it is extremely difficult to get a foot in this industry and as a newcomer to it, it’s hard not to feel like the system sets me up to fail.

The good news is that if any of you know me even a little, that just pisses me off and makes me work ten times harder.

Also, regarding my impending iPhone, remember when I said: “It’s one of those things that I’m trying not to be excited about, because you never know what can happen (and when it comes to Bell, trust me when I say anything can happen), but I’m still a bit tingly over the idea of getting one.”

Bell shipped the phone to the address I previously held in Toronto. Even though I have a Montreal phone number, and changed addresses over 2 months ago.

I have let them know they have until Thursday to get a phone to me if they want to keep my business.